<p>S1 found that the preprofessional students at Harvard were incredibly focused on their careers after college. From day one, the main concern was how what they were doing would help them land that acceptance at a top professional school. Much the same pattern that got them into Harvard to begin with. Chicago students (as represented by friends in the premed groups) in contrast, were not so obsessed. The culture in the schools is just different. Many more of the very best and brightest at peer schools are focused on the professions. Many of the best and brightest at Chicago are not, if they were I’m sure the LSAT scores etc. would likely be higher. This may not represent the school at all, but simply the focus of each school’s student population. S1, who finished almost all the premed requirements and who was on track to met the requirements described here has decided he now disdains the “practical” as he calls it, and is interested in theory and will be headed to grad school instead. The culture grabbed him and changed him, I’m sure he is not an isolated case. Part of his decision was based on his time at Harvard talking with the premeds there. Rightly or wrongly, he did not see them as interested in topics not directly related to their professional goals as he was. He said he just didn’t find the lifestyle attractive. (The other part was shadowing a top surgeon and an internist for a month, and finding it was not as interesting to him as he thought it would be.) From an article in the Harvard Crimson (2008):
I would wager this is quite different than Chicago’s demographic.</p>